Guest Interview with Gene Bedient, OrganbuilderProviding Great Worship InstrumentsOne Organ at a TimeGene Bedient started the Bedient Pipe Organ Company over 40 years ago. He based the company on a combined love of music and all things technical. Over the course of this journey, Bedient made many pipe organs throughout the US that are a legacy of craftsmanship, artwork, technical engineering, and audible beauty.

In 1969, Bedient started rebuilding and repairing organs in a garage in Lincoln, Nebraska. His vision grew over the next 40 years. Together with a small, dedicated crew, Bedient Pipe Organ Company built 81 organs, each unique, each an artistic and technical work of art. (www.bedientogran.com/about/the-bedient-story)Jeannine:What was your inspiration to become an organ builder?Mr. Bedient: I was an undergraduate student majoring in piano at Wesley Foundation in Lincoln, Nebraska when I first encountered a pipe organ. The organ was at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and was the first pipe organ I’d seen. I was fascinated by the technical aspects and the sound. Inspired by this instrument, I went on to pursue a Master of Music degree in organ performance from Wesley Foundation. Jeannine: You’ve had quite an adventure since retiring from the Bedient Organ Company. Tell us more.Mr. Bedient: After retiring from the Bedient Pipe Organ Company in 2010, I have had the privilege of following my wife, a member of the State Department’s Foreign Service, to several different exciting locales around the world. In each place, I have been able to ply my organ building craft and I have had my 1980 one-manual Hill and Tyre bent-side spinet harpsichord with me. In Algiers (the capital of Algeria) I did tuning work and had the opportunity to play my harpsichord in a public recital. In Paris, I volunteered to work on the organ at the American Cathedral which had been neglected and needed a lot of help. I also worked three days a week for an organbuilder friend, Michel Jurine, a small builder like Bedient and located near Lyon. I worked on organbuilding tasks for new instruments and voicing of organ restorations they had completed or were underway. I helped another organbuilder friend, Bertrand Cattiaux occasionally at Notre Dame and the Chapel at Versailles. In late 2014, my wife was assigned to Harare, Zimbabwe where we will now spend the next 18 months. Jeannine: Please tell our readers about your latest “organ building/repair/renovation adventure” in Harare, Zimbabwe. Mr. Bedient: Work in Zimbabwe has been among the greatest organ repair/renovation challenge since leaving Lincoln, Nebraska five years ago. I am currently in the process of completing an extensive overhaul of the organ in the Anglican Cathedral of St. Mary and All Saints in downtown Harare. Before our arrival in Zimbabwe, I connected with Prince Nyatanga, a Zimbabwean organist now studying at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Through correspondence, prior to my arrival, he introduced me to organist, Ruth Chard who has been keeping the organ alive in Harare for many years. She is official organist for the Cathedral, playing for a service the first Sunday of the month. She is also director of music for ChristChurch Anglican in northern Harare. Most if not all of the organbuilding and maintenance in Harare has come from South Africa. In fact I believe all but one organ have been supplied by Copper, Gill and Tompkins, (CGT), an old firm that celebrated 100 years in 2002. They have worked in conjunction with supplier, August Laukhuff in Germany. Weeks after my arrival, I was contacted by Peterhouse Boy’s School in Marondera, Prince Nyatanga’s Alma Mater, and asked if I could perform some urgently needed work for a forthcoming event. The Peterhouse chapel organ is somewhat typical of instruments in Zimbabwe. It was supplied by CGT and was partly new and partly recycled from other organs. At that time my tools had not yet arrived; the school’s Design Center personnel provided tools and workshop facilities for my week’s work. Most of the problems were solved put parts are coming, permitting me to complete the work in May. There is an original 1927 Casavant tubular pneumatic organ at Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral, and it is in remarkably good condition. Ruth Chard showed me the Cathedral organ whose scheduled renovation had been postponed due to political turmoil of 2007. We discussed the needs over the coming weeks and at the end of the year, plans were made for me to renovate the organ. The original instrument for The Pro-Cathedral, Salisbury, Rhodesia, a ten-stop pneumatic organ, was built by the prominent British firm, Norman and Beard of Norwich and delivered in 1907. Its journey was circuitous, through Beria and Mozambique. As the Cathedral expanded and a new facility was built, the organ was moved. In the early 1960s, Cooper, Gill and Tompkins, was contracted to build a new instrument, incorporating most of the pipes from the Norman and Beard organ. CGT has graciously sent their files of correspondence about this project; voluminous correspondence describes several versions of a very large Neo Baroque organ of 55-60 stops that apparently never materialized. The actual instrument is difficult to pinpoint because the correspondence indicates so much wishing, quotations for things that apparently never materialized, and constant revisions. The project started about 1962 and appeared to be in an almost constant state of revising through about 1977. I’ve given the existing stoplist: an organ of 30 stops, 34 ranks, and this seems to be the nominal size that actual materialized from the hopes for a much larger instrument. After Ruth facilitated a grant from the Beit Trust, I started to work nearly three months ago. I was able to hire two assistants, but neither has any technical or musical skills. However, we have been able to painstakingly and thoroughly clean, regulate, and repair all the pipes. I am pleased to report that after nearly 3 months, the Cathedral organ is now again in working order and sounds remarkably better. However, it is not in perfect condition. The available funds enabled me to clean and repair the pipes, regulate, tune and look after the most serious mechanical/electrical problems. In the future, the windchests and the reservoirs will need to be releathered. Jeannine: What is the same/different about working in Harare as compared to Lincoln, NE?Mr. Bedient: Knowing I might be involved in organ work at various locations as we move around the world, I brought hand tools and specialized organ building tools with me from the US and they have followed me from one Post to another. The main problem here in Zimbabwe, is the availability of materials. Fortunately some were left behind in the organ chamber by earlier builders and technicians and I’ve had some specialized materials sent in by mail. After CGT left the organ in the 1970s, lots of people with varying skills/knowledge levels have worked on the organ and made revisions. Some work has been OK; some terrible. By improvising, I’ve been able to deal with most problems and needs of the Cathedral organ. At this point, with almost a half-century of organbuilding experience, there isn’t anything that I don’t know how to do, or problems that I can’t solve. It is just finding the best way with the resources available and that makes it fun for me. I know this is here and now; it won’t go on forever and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. One of the bigger differences between working here in Harare or in the US or France has been the societal norms in general. Zimbabwe is a non-technical society; my workers brought little in the way of technical skills and/or aptitudes with them. Skills I take for granted not only in my staff at Bedient but in the general Western world populace, are non-existent here. There is little to no knowledge of how to use simple tools or how to analyze and complete simple tasks. For example, locating a pipe with a cipher and then correcting the problem even after several months of working with me on the organ project, is still baffling for them. Lack of technical aptitude coupled with lackluster motivation and engagement in the project, despite being given employment, is sadly, a microcosm of Zimbabwean society today. Far from seeming to be discouraged by this situation, my helpers have a very unflappable air about them and they are anything but lazy.Jeannine:20 years ago, I presented an organ workshop at the Harare Cathedral to half-a-dozen aspiring organists hungry for music, and ways to enhance their skills. What is the situation now and how is/will be the organ used at the Cathedral.Mr. Bedient: Unfortunately, the future of the organ is no longer bright here in Harare. Ruth Chard, as the Cathedral Organist, plays for only one service per month and there are few if any studying to become organists or even interested in gaining rudimentary organ skills. There are, however, two Zimbabwean “organ stars” who came out of the Peterhouse School at Marondera; Prince Nyatanga who is now studying and performing in the US, and Murray Somerville, noted organist and conductor, who performs across three continents. Jeannine: Last month, I interviewed Michel Koenig, an Austrian who is developing an organ course to be used as a training program for those would-be organists in the 7,000+ Apostolic churches in Nigeria and Kenya. Is church music and in particular, the use of the organ in church music of interest in Zimbabwe?Mr. Bedient: There does not seem to be that same interest in the organ here in Zimbabwe. At the Anglican Cathedral, daily prayer services are held in the Shona language, with some English.

The singing, mainly of revivalist hymns, is magnificent but unaccompanied. Hopefully with the repair of the Cathedral organ, there may be a renewed interest in accompanied service music and for others to follow in Ms. Chard’s footsteps as an organist.Jeannine: How exciting to be able to continue your craft in many different parts of the world. What is the next stop on your journey? Mr. Bedient: We have no idea at this point where my wife will be stationed following her service here in Zimbabwe. In the meantime, we are enjoying this unique culture and the opportunity to promote the organ in yet another part of the world. By the way, Zimbabwe was recently listed by the New York Times as the #1 tourist destination in Africa due to its climate, relative peace, stunning scenery, and the opportunity to see the “Big Five” in the wild.